Georges Charpak

Georges Charpak ( born August 1, 1924 in Dąbrowica, Poland, now Ukraine; † 29 September 2010 in Paris ) was a French physicist of Polish descent.

Life

Charpak was born into a Jewish family who emigrated to France when he was seven years old. From 1941 he was active in the Resistance under the false name of Jacques Charpentier, living in Troyes. Charpak 1943 was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where he also survived thanks to his ability to speak several languages ​​until liberation in 1945.

In 1946 he became a French citizen. In 1947 he joined the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris ( ENSMP ) ( where he studied from 1945 ) from 1955 he earned his doctorate at the Collège de France with a thesis in experimental nuclear physics. 1948 to 1959, he conducted research for the CNRS. From 1959 he was a scientist at the nuclear research center CERN in Geneva.

1992 Charpak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in essence for the invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber, a form of wire chamber, which he designed in 1968, which recorded up to a million traces per second could, about a million times more than the equipment used previously (eg, bubble chambers ).

In 1960 he took part in the first accurate measurement of the magnetic moment of the muon at CERN. 1985 to 1991 he was involved in various experiments at Fermilab.

Later lived and Charpak worked in France, where he worked among other things as an author.

Honors and Memberships

He was more honorary doctorates ( Geneva, 1977, the University of Brussels, Coimbra, Thessaloniki, Ottawa )

Charpak was a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1994 ), the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon. In 2007 he became an officer of the Legion of Honour.